Vegan recipes

[Luc]

Let me preface by, I am not a vegan and do not intend to go full-time into veganisme. I try to eat a vegan meal once a week for dinner or, at a bare minimum, vegetarian.

I am a firm believer that if I eat a bit of everything, its good for me. Everything in moderation!

I recently (January 2022) started paying attention to what I eat(and how much) to try and balance my meals as much as I can. I am following the 50% carbs, 20% fat and 30% protein with MyFitnessPal (MFP for those who are used to it!). To be transparent, I don't eat as much carbs as I should. Often I eat too much protein and a bit more fat that I would like to. However, something worked in my shenanigans as I lost around 1/3 of my body weight in 12 months. I've been maintainig my weight since December 2022. I eliminated a lot of process food. I also re-proportion a lot of my meals to add more vegetables (veggies + complex carb) and reduced a lot of the fat. I basically follow the recommend portions on the package of what I eat.

At the moment, my vegan meals are basically Bean tacos or Pasta Flagole (bean pasta). I would like to add more dishes to this rotation.

I know that I could take any recipe and replace Turkey with pinto beans (I love pinto beans, black beans, Cannellini Beans) or even Tofu. I eat tofu here and there also. I'm not very good with it (tofu vs spice). So I often eat it in soups. The one thing that my mind cannot do is those beyond meat packages at the grocery(or any "fake meats"). I mean, I can't pronounce half the ingredients so I figure that's no good. I know that spices are key in most meals (duh!).

I'm phasing out any processed meat (or ingredient) as much as possible.

What I'm looking for is something that I can cook to make 2-3 plates (but I can figure the proportions or portions on my own, I'm doing ok in a kitchen).

I have an extremely picky eater at home that doesn't like green, soups, stews, sauces, you name it. Which limits my options quite a bit for dinner. My strategy is to do these at lunch time. That way, I'm the only one eating it so, I got rid of my picky eater (ah HA!).

I already have overnight oats 3 times a week but it's more vegetarian than vegan since I have milk products in it. I know, I can substitute for non-dairy and it would be ok but I'm looking for something that would align with my lunches/dinner. Something that I can meal prep and re-heat when required.

I mainly cook Mexican food or Italian food. I've been on a Japanese food kick in the last few months (not just sushi).

At the end of the day, any good recipes that I can make? I know that asking for "good tasting" is ludicrous since no one cook bad tasting food!

 

[Buster]

I started a topic on this subject a while ago. If you search for plant based eating you should find it.

We eat a lot of asian foods. It’s pretty easy to make a large stir fry and have leftovers for lunch. Korean food is something to explore For lunch box ideas. I like kimchi pancakes a lot.

I recently discovered Butler soy curls. Made with whole beans. It’s a good meat like replacement. Hard to find in the stores though. I ordered it on line.

Butler Foods | Soy Curls

www.butlerfoods.com

Grandma style kimchi pancake (Kimchijeon)

I'm going to introduce 2 kinds of kimchijeon to you today: chopped kimchi pancake and non-chopped kimchi pancake.

www.maangchi.com

 

[Buster]

Thought of this lunch we make from time to time.

Chickpea Salad Sandwich

This simple chickpea salad sandwich is a creamy & filling vegetarian lunch idea that we whip up all the time! Like a chickpea tuna salad but totally vegan!

40aprons.com

 

[DrStrange]

Right now

is the height of ramp season

in the Southern Tier of New York.

 

[Tirvine]

I save vegetable trimmings to make vegetable broth. It is very tasty and versatile. It makes an excellent base for minestrone or other vegan soups. As regards your oats, try them with almond milk. Tofu curries are excellent, and the only noticeable compromise to make them vegan is using tamari or soy instead of fish sauce. Grilled eggplant layered with a sauce of onions, capers, olives , and fresh tomatoes is very tasty. A dish of stacked enchiladas layered in green sauce with chunks of squash, onion, and poblanos is terrific. Holler if you need more ideas or any recipes for any of these.

 

[thombrogan]

Falafel (nuggets of ground, seasoned, fried chickpeas) with hummus (more chickpeas and garlic and tahini ground into a paste) with tabouleh (parsley, tomatoes, onions, bulgur wheat, and vinegar/citric acid) is very delicious. Putting in a wrap (tortilla, pita, lavash…) and/or adding tatziki sauce (Greek cucumber and yogurt thing) makes it less vegan, but extremely delicious.

 

[Blackland Razors]

Look up how to make seitan. It's meat replacement made from vital wheat gluten and water. Extremely high in protein, too, since gluten is protein. Also dirt cheap. You make a dough, steam/boil it, and then you can slice it up or cook it however you might use meat in a dish. Recipes for seitan itself range from super basic (literally water + vwg mixed and steamed) to more complex where people try to match specific textures and flavors of meat (including the shredding of muscle fibers). It can be a bit chewy on the simple side or super tender and meatlike depending on the recipe. Super versatile and adaptable.

We also like the cookbook Thug Kitchen. A little bit of a cringey gimmicky title/writing, but the recipes are solid.

 

[DesertIguana]

Believe word Vegan is Navajo for poor hunter.

 

[NorthernSoul]

A lot of cooking done around the world and into ancient times was vegetarian or vegan. That means there is a treasure trove of good recipes to research.

I'll suggest a couple cookbooks that have been helpful to me. These can be found used for little cost.

Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World

Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen

​

 

[Buster]

This eggplant recipe is fantastic

Soy-Glazed Eggplant Donburi 茄子の甘辛丼

Golden seared eggplant coated in a sweet-salty sauce, my Soy-Glazed Eggplant Donburi is a delicious and satisfying Japanese vegan rice bowl.

www.justonecookbook.com

Tofu mushroom stir fry

Tofu and Mushroom Stir-Fry

Faster than delivery, and about 10x more delicious.

www.bonappetit.com

Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce

The eggplant is grilled until crispy and smoky, and then cooked in a rich savory garlic sauce. This vegan dish is very satisfying, both as a side or a main dish served over rice or noodles. {Gluten-Free Adaptable}

omnivorescookbook.com

This stuffed flat bread is surprisingly easy and very versatile.

Gozleme!

Gozleme! Turkish flatbread recipe stuffed with Spinach and Feta, OR a Spiced Lamb or Beef filling. Crispy on the outside, juicy inside, outrageously good!

www.recipetineats.com

 

[Old Hippie]

I see I've written a dissertation. Well. Another dissertation. (shrug)

TL;DR: You've got options.

I am a firm believer that if I eat a bit of everything, its good for me. Everything in moderation!

A committed omnivore. I think the kids call that "flexitarian" now. "Everything in moderation" was one of my mother's favourite aphorisms. Right up there with "clean your plate" and "children should be seen and not heard." I discovered Heinlein at a young age, and have lived by "Everything in moderation. Including moderation."

At the moment, my vegan meals are basically Bean tacos or Pasta Flagole (bean pasta). I would like to add more dishes to this rotation.

Hey, it's a good start. We can do more!

I'm a committed omnivore, myself. We've been all over the foodie map from "Eat Like A North Dakotan" to being vegan for a few years. Nota bene: Mom was from North Dakota and cooked what she knew. Not a criticism; I didn't starve.

One of the tricks Mrs. Hippie and I turned on to was to go looking for other foodways that had meatless traditions. Asian, South Asian/Indian, Latin American. Sure, you can buy "meatless meat" substitutes and we did occasionally but that's a spendy proposition.

Although you can buy just about anything, being able to make it yourself is good. OK, let's dig a little...

Seitan was suggested. Lovely stuff! Seitan is the gluten from wheat flour, separated and washed. Holding a pound of seitan in your hands is like holding the biggest clam you ever shucked. One of the more interesting things I found to do with seitan came from Japanese Temple Cuisine. Deep frying seitan in really hot oil makes a strangely light and fluffy presentation. Making it is easy: stir together some whole wheat flour and water and let it sit to hydrate, then stir/knead until the gluten forms. Then gradually rinse the starches away under cold water and keep kneading it until you have a lump of mostly gluten.

Tofu is good, too. OK -- I can hear the grumbles. Yer not doin' it right. We use extra-firm pressed tofu to replace the Indian cheese paneer in palak paneer (spinach curry with cheese). I don't tend to buy the soft tofu, because I don't have much use for it. We go through a fair bit of medium-firm, however. I like to take a one-pound block of it and slice it into four slices. Then I take a cookie sheet and put a tea towel on it, put the slices on the towel and fold the rest of the towel over the top. Then I add another cookie sheet and a cast-iron pot on top of that and let it sit an hour to press out the liquid. The pressed slices can be browned in a skillet before being built into recipes.

Tempeh is another soy product. It's fairly common but also quite simple to make. Although you can go nuts cooking all kinds of dishes, one of my old standbys for tempeh is to simply slice it thin and pop it in the toaster. When it comes out I drizzle with a little lime juice, a dollop of sambal oelek (chili paste) and a few drops of soy sauce while the bread for the sandwich is toasting.

At the end of the day, any good recipes that I can make? I know that asking for "good tasting" is ludicrous since no one cook bad tasting food!

Taking a glance at the cookbook shelves, here are some suggestions. Some of them are older, and there are likely many more that I don't have yet.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (separately and together) have some very good vegan cookbooks. Veganomicon is older but has good ideas. Isa recently published a book on vegan meat substitutes, which I have yet to get. Soon. My advice is not to just blindly order them from Amazon but try to find some copies to look at. May or may not be your thing.

Naomi Duguid and Jeffery Alford (separately and together) have some not-specifically-vegan cookbooks that are essentially travelogues with stunning photos and drool-worthy recipes. Seductions of Rice, Flatbreads and Flavors, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Beyond the Great Wall, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, Burma, Persia, Chicken in the Mango Tree -- I don't think you could pick a bad one. I think I've got the full set and, full disclosure, I was one of the testers for Persia.

Lukas Volger's book Bowl will give you great ideas for creating vegan bowls. On reflection, might be your best bet for avoiding the picky eater, since you could make bowls for lunch.

Kirsten and Christopher Shockey have some very interesting books, mainly on vegetable fermentation. Miso, Tempeh, Natto might be your most useful, though they have books on making hot sauce, cider, and various fermented veggies.

The last authors I'll recommend here are William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi. They wrote a number of cookbooks including The Book of Miso, The Book of Tofu and The Book of Tempeh. The books, although somewhat older, have a selection of recipes from both the original foodways and western cooking.

O.H.

 

[maxman]

I'm very much in the same boat as OP. I like to eat less meat when possible. I've almost completely eliminated it from my daily lunch. Rarely with breakfast too.

I eat tofu and beans mostly. Love me a good Chana Masala or Chana Aloo.
Don't overlook TVP for a soy based protein. We used to use that a lot when meat prices went through the roof. mixed it in with our ground beef to stretch it further.

If you try a veggie Chili you can add things like sweet potato and black beans instead of meat.
For stir fry veggies there are a ton of quick sauces out there that can be made with just a few ingredients.
I use MSG but I know a lot of people don't.

Once you build a good supply of Asian and South Asian ingredients you will find it's just mixing and matching to taste.
A little soy sauce, shaoxing wine and oyster sauce will take you many places.

I like youtube for recipes. It's nice to see how people are cooking things instead of reading what they are doing.
I'm a visual style learner though Never been good with just books.

 

[RayClem]

Those that are true vegans often have trouble meeting their nutritional requirements. There are some nutritional elements such as some amino acids that are difficult to obtain from plants. You are better off being a lacto-ovo-pescatarian. They will consume milk and other dairy products like cheese and yogurt along with eggs. However, no animals are sacrificed for the meal. The eggs and dairy contain some of the nutrition not available from vegetables and fruits.

When you say you are trying to achieve a balance of 50% carbs, 20% fat, and 30% protein, is that based on caloric content or weight? The reason I ask is that fat has slightly more than twice the caloric content per gram as carbohydrates and protein. The American Heart Association recommends that 20-35% of your calories come from fat. Many of the things once stated about the health risks of saturated fats like butter, lard and coconut oil, have been disproven in recent years. Some of the vegetable seed fats once touted as good fats are high in omega 6 fatty acids that can cause inflammation.

If you need to add more carbs to your diet, things like pasta and rice can help with that. If you are gluten intolerant, you have to be careful to avoid product with wheat and rye.

 

[Tirvine]

Tonight will be a tofu riff on Thai curry. I cube the pressed extra firm tofu bite sized, toss it in cornstarch, and pan fry it until crisp and lightly browned. In a wok stir the tofu and sliced vegetables of your choice in some red Thai curry paste. Pour in a can of coconut milk, add a couple of sppons of brown sugar, and a splash of nam pla, substituting tamari or soy if you wish. Simmer until vegetable texture is right and serve with rice. Optional: garnish with any or all of mustard pickle, mango chutney, chopped peanuts, or shredded coconut.

 

[Luc]

Just to emphasize my goal, I'm not looking at becoming vegan full-time. What I want is to add a few vegan meals here and there(once or twice a week, maybe). I did a fair bit of research on how macros vs weight vs calories work. I use MyFitnessPal daily. So, nutrition-wise, I think I'm all right. I won't say that I know everything but, I've achieved a healthy weight and calibrated it using the TDEE calculator.

What I'm after, is your vegan recipes. It's not a question of cost or cruelty. I believe that I can remain healthy by eating vegan here and there. Vegan-specific recipes are what I'm lacking. The rest isn't a problem.

So, what's that recipe that you keep making over and over?

 

[Tirvine]

Just to emphasize my goal, I'm not looking at becoming vegan full-time. What I want is to add a few vegan meals here and there(once or twice a week, maybe). I did a fair bit of research on how macros vs weight vs calories work. I use MyFitnessPal daily. So, nutrition-wise, I think I'm all right. I won't say that I know everything but, I've achieved a healthy weight and calibrated it using the TDEE calculator.

What I'm after, is your vegan recipes. It's not a question of cost or cruelty. I believe that I can remain healthy by eating vegan here and there. Vegan-specific recipes are what I'm lacking. The rest isn't a problem.

So, what's that recipe that you keep making over and over?

Over and over? Tofu curry; stir fried bok choy, mushrooms, and sprouts; minestrone; enchiladas; vegetable burgers; white beans with tomatoes and fennel; black beans with garlic, allspice, and peppers; and pasta with olive oil and garlic.

 

[simon1]

If you try a veggie Chili

 

[Old Hippie]

So, what's that recipe that you keep making over and over?

Heh. Lots of them.

Various vegetable stir-fries. Roasted root vegetables. Shredded beet wonton. Beans! Et-endless-cetera.

As @maxman said, spices, man. Many foodways use similar ingredients but the spice palette changes. Sometimes I want to go "Full Nanaimo" and other times I just want to "invoke" a particular taste.

One thing I've learned is the whole bowl philosophy: starch base, add protein, add veggies, add flavour notes, add sauce. There is a universe of flavours in there. We have several kinds of noodles as well as various grains (rice, bulgur, cous-cous, masa, buckwheat...). Protein is anything from meat (bacon bowl with a fried egg?) to veggie protein (tempeh, tofu, seitan...). Veggies are whatever you have; raw, steamed, sauteed. Flavour notes are pickled things, crunchy things, crunchy pickled things... and sauce is anything from a simple "satay" of peanut butter and sambal oelek to something more involved.

It's a dish we eat a lot but never eat the same thing twice. If that makes sense.

As for ideas, for years I've had the habit of checking the fridge and pantry and then typing in what I find as search terms in Google. You'll get all kinds of ideas. Case in point: I just typed "beer cheese beans tomatoes bulgur" and got back 693,000 hits including "Summer Bulgur and Green Bean Salad" and an interesting dish called "Baked Leeks, Tomatoes and Bulgur with Feta and Garlic Yogurt."

Go nuts. Oh yeah; nuts are vegan.

O.H.

 

[Tirvine]

View attachment 1644895

The Texas Chili Parlor here in Austin makes terrific chili. Big ol' chunks of meat, no tomatoey sauce, no beans, plenty of depth, and the XXX had plenty of zing. However, my favorite dish there is the five bean chili Frito pie.

 

[Mempho]

I've been a vegetarian (not vegan) for 40 years and my meals are mostly rice or homemade bread with soup and/or a salad. I enjoy Asian and Indian meals when I'm eating out but they're too much trouble day to day. One of my favorite cookbooks is "From a Monastery Kitchen" by Brother Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette. There are several books, but unfortunately they're hard to find now. Here's the Brother's lentil soup.

Lentil and Lemon-peel Soup
From a Monastery Kitchen, 1st edition

1 cup Lentils
1 quart Water
1/2 Lemon peel, zested
1 Onion, chopped
1-2 Garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp Salt
5 Peppercorns

Simmer until lentils are tender, about 1 hour.

The lemon zest plays against the earthy taste of the lentils.